


have your cake and eat it too

by inverse



Category: SHINee
Genre: M/M, allusions to eating disorders and body image issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-08
Updated: 2010-10-08
Packaged: 2017-10-31 12:09:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/343888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inverse/pseuds/inverse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>kibum is hungry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	have your cake and eat it too

Kibum has a problem.

Sometimes he stays up late at night, unable to fall asleep, stuck between a snoring Taemin on his right and a Jinki who’s burrowed into his blanket on his left. It’s almost always because he’s too tired to fall asleep, if that’s even possible, and he gets the worst headaches if he closes his eyes and forces himself to think of nothing but sleeping.

Lately he’s found a way to cope. He lies in bed and stares at the ceiling and thinks about different things that bother him, like having to share the bathroom with four other guys, or how Jonghyun is always a rude douchebag, or shrinking. (For example: the problem with shrinking, he thinks, is that his bones are in the way, hard and solid and tangible, and one day there will be nothing left for his hunger to feed on, just skin wrapped taut around bone. And the thing is, he’s always been big-boned, so he would look ten times as horrible than if he were small-boned. Or normal-boned. It would be absolutely grotesque and unbecoming, and he would hate it, absolutely.)

He runs a few fingers up the side of his body, feeling for the grooves from rib to rib, however slight they may be. His rib bones press back, weighty and comforting. So far, so good.

 

 

 

Jinki has womanly hips. In fact he’s got some of the womanliest thighs Kibum has ever had the privilege to witness on a member of the male species. They’re all curvy and round, from the side and the front and the back; Kibum sometimes wonders, is it because Jinki was a fat kid? Jinki emerges from the kitchen one morning, holding a plate of toast, his pyjamas clinging to his silhouette as he walks towards the dining table, and Kibum realises that Jinki’s realised that Kibum’s staring (even if he didn’t know it himself), so he simpers at Jinki, who looks at him suspiciously with narrowed eyes.

Okay, Kibum knows Jinki is thinking. I don’t know what you’re up to, but you’re up to something. The funny thing is, Kibum isn’t even up to anything. Things like this happen all the time without Kibum even planning them.

Kibum makes Taemin eat a lot at breakfast. Part of it is because Taemin is a growing child, and part of it is because it makes Kibum feel responsible for something (in addition to the ever growing list of things he is responsible for in this largely irresponsible and dysfunctional household), but most of it is because Taemin sometimes gets dangerously close to becoming a stick – literally – and Kibum doesn’t like it when Taemin gets dangerously close to becoming a stick.

“Key-hyung,” Taemin says hurriedly between bites, “There’s a limit to how much my stomach can hold, I can’t eat that much.”

“Yeah, it’s likely that he’s old enough to feed himself, too,” Minho drawls.

Jonghyun finishes up everything else that’s left.

 

 

 

Minho doesn’t know that Jonghyun knows where he keeps his porn. To be fair to him, none of it really is hardcore, and it’s actually not really porn; most of it is just cute, well-endowed girls posing salaciously in strategically placed clothes on an anonymous beach or someone’s summer villa in France. The models are mainly Japanese. It’s awfully vanilla of Minho, Kibum thinks. Maybe it’s because he’s never touched a girl before, not even to hold hands.

He walks into his room one day to find Jonghyun lying on his bed, flipping leisurely through one of those photobooks with a silly grin on his face as if it were a particularly enjoyable chicklit novel.

“Can you not?” Kibum says. “That’s my bed.”

Jonghyun ignores him and beckons for him to go over. “Check this one out,” he says, eyes lighting up. “She’s got to be my pick of the week, definitely, would you look at the size of her boobs.”

“Your drooling is about to cause a flood in Apgujeong,” Kibum tells him, but he entertains Jonghyun’s request anyway, and takes a quick look at the photographs. The model is wearing a white bikini and some flowers in her hair, which is frankly nothing new, and she isn’t very bad looking at all. There’s really nothing special about her breasts, but Kibum has to admit that they are large without looking disturbing or fake or rubbery, which is an accomplishment in itself, and her skin is white and soft and unmarked. Kind of like bean curd.

“She’s beautiful,” Jonghyun exclaims gleefully.

 

 

 

The meat on his plate is fresh, bright red, almost bloody, the fat in it webby and marbled, and when Kibum pokes at it with his chopsticks it dents slightly and then rebounds with a defiant spring. Minho empties his whole lot onto the pan in an untidy heap, spreading the pile out retrospectively with the help of a solitary chopstick, and it cooks with an indecent-sounding sizzle. Kibum watches the lipids melt, browning and coating the surface of the grill.

“I don’t think you’d be a tasty person,” Kibum says.

“What?” Jonghyun says, clearly nonplussed.

“I said, you won’t be a tasty person,” Kibum repeats, looking over at Jinki, who is downing his rice with utmost relish and enthusiasm.

 

 

 

“Are you getting enough sleep lately?”

“What?” Kibum looks up, and Jinki is peering at him, face twisted into a picture of overwrought concern. It’s an hour before their next schedule begins, and it’s being taped in the same studio, so Kibum decides to take a break in the dressing room. All he does is sit on the couch and before he knows it, he’s nodded off. Until Jinki wakes him up, of course.

Jinki plops down next to him none too gently, and Kibum can feel the seat of the couch sink towards Jinki because of the sudden weight. Jinki’s ample thighs are now pressed against his bony ones, but Kibum can’t think too much of it because Jinki says, “I know you’re still awake when I wake up in the middle of the night, sometimes,” and he’s so close that Kibum can smell the burn from all the blowing and drying on his hair. It would be easy, Kibum thinks, to just lean on his shoulder and fall asleep all over again, and he knows Jinki would probably sit there, still as a statue, just so Kibum could get his sleep. It would be easy and it would be nice and Jinki would probably allow it even if Kibum didn’t ask him, and afterwards he wouldn’t even mind if Kibum didn’t thank him.

So Kibum ruins it by saying, “Yeah, so why don’t you leave me alone so I can have a nap.”

Jinki makes a kicked puppy face at him and gets up. When he leaves Kibum notices that Jonghyun is standing in the corridor, drinking from a can of coffee and staring at Kibum with a bemused look on his face. It occurs to Kibum right then that Jonghyun was probably standing there the entire time without even bothering to say a word.

“Are you on your period or something,” Jonghyun says.

“Has anyone told you recently that you’ve got no manners,” Kibum replies, not even bothering with the profanities.

 

 

 

It’s easy to drink yourself silly. All you need is some hard liquor and a lack of inhibition, and as with most things in his life Kibum finds them coming unplanned and unannounced. It’s not that he doesn’t try to keep things under control. Spontaneity is difficult to control. “I thought I told you to keep an eye on him,” Jinki says – since when did he even need someone keeping an eye over him? He’s always the one who’s keeping an eye on people. But never mind that – “I can’t keep him in sight 24/7,” Jonghyun replies, and the expression on Minho’s face says it all; it’s saying, the shit’s finally hit the fan, and it’s somehow ugly but hilarious at the same time because Minho’s eyes are bulging unblinkingly from his face, and Kibum cups a hand over his mouth because fuck, he thinks he might hurl. But he doesn’t.

Jinki is the only one who stays behind when Kibum disappears into the bathroom to hopefully throw up whatever in his stomach that’s making him feel hot and sick and queasy. It doesn’t work, because he can’t bear to stick his finger down his throat far enough for his oesophagus to seize up, and Jinki stands in the doorway like an ominous shadow, watching him all the time.

“Go away,” Kibum tells him after the fourth failed attempt.

“What’s this,” Jinki asks, “are you twelve?”

“Maybe,” Kibum says, laughing, and shrieks when Jinki grabs him and pulls him under the shower and turns the tap on, and the water is mercilessly cold and Jinki is merciless and oh god, Kibum will never forget this, the bastard –

“You awake now?” Jinki says, short and curt, and Kibum’s never heard him talk like this before, even when Jinki’s being all serious and stern and leader-like; he sounds almost rude now, almost like he hates Kibum’s guts and wishes he never existed, and it’s such a turn-on Kibum thinks he might just moan out loud or something. Maybe he does.

“Do that more often,” he says to Jinki, who probably has no idea what he’s saying, but it doesn’t matter because when Kibum latches onto Jinki and kisses him without warning, Jinki drops the showerhead (not in surprise, definitely) and kisses back, and it doesn’t matter what Kibum did or did not say. Kibum’s head is spinning and his heart is going into overdrive, because he’s probably drunk and he’s fed up and he’s shivering all over from that awful cold shower, but also because Jinki’s the angriest and most aggressive kisser ever (Kibum is starting to think he’s lying when he says he doesn’t have experience) and his hands are all over Kibum and under Kibum’s skin, and fuck if he’s not the most attractive person Kibum’s ever laid eyes on, although that could just be the alcohol talking. When Kibum opens his eyes the fluorescent lamp on the ceiling is glowing with the brilliance of a billion watts, but he thinks that might be because he’s going to keel over in a dead faint, and that’s just his vision whiting out on him.

“You like me,” he says delightedly.

“Screw this,” Jinki says, his t-shirt all wet, “I’m going to bed.”

 

 

 

Taemin sets a glass of orange juice down on the table.

“It’s apparently really good for hangovers,” he explains helpfully, although Kibum’s head is pounding a little too loudly for him to digest anything Taemin is saying. “There’s a lot of Vitamin C.”

Jinki nearly slices his finger off while chopping up the scallions for the pancakes, and there’s a huge fuss in the kitchen where Jonghyun makes Jinki rinse the wound under the tap. Minho takes ten minutes to locate the first aid box – Kibum isn’t about to be kind enough to tell him where it is – pretends that he’s still stuck in semiconscious limbo, head on the dining table – and if Jinki had really sliced his finger off, he probably would have went into shock from the blood loss by the time any attempts at rescuing him began, given the average amount of emergency know-how each of them had.

Someone sets down a plate in front of Kibum with a loud and rude clank. It’s Jonghyun. Kibum would tell him off, but settles for giving him a frosty glare, which Jonghyun gamely returns.

“Is this penance for last night?” Kibum asks Jinki, whose left index finger is wrapped lovingly in a blanket of gauze. “Having to eat your cooking?”

“I could’ve thought of something worse,” Jinki says, and flushes.

Love really is cheap, Kibum thinks to himself. He chews slowly and deliberately, taking small, careful bites, and promises himself that he will not eat anything more than two slices.

 

 

 

Jinki accosts Kibum with two huge lunchboxes during lunchtime at their next photoshoot. He sets one down on the dressing table in front of Kibum and opens his own. “Wow, chicken,” he says.

“Can’t you see that I’m busy,” Kibum snaps, occupying himself with his phone.

“Open up,” Jinki says, his voice low, sending a spoonful of rice and spicy chicken his way. Kibum can’t resist, as if he’s hypnotised, but if there’s one thing he’s not going to let Jinki do, it’s to feed him, literally, so he holds onto Jinki’s forearm while he eats from the spoon (on which Jinki had managed to build a mini-mountain of food). He crams it all in at one go, and he can hardly chew because there’s so much food and his mouth can only hold so much. The rice is all overcooked and mushy. Jinki watches him eat, and he is probably under the mistaken impression that Kibum is enjoying it.

“It’s good, isn’t it,” Jinki grins.

“Yeah,” Kibum says, even though he thinks it’s got the standard of cheap Chinese takeaway. “Are we done with this?”

After lunch they change out for the next segment of the shoot, and when Kibum laces up the new pair of sneakers he can’t help but run his fingers over the grooves around his Achilles tendon, just to check if they’re still there. When he looks up Jonghyun is checking himself out in the mirror, and he swears he can hear Jonghyun mutter to himself, “When am I going to start having real abs?”

 

 

 

Kibum is making out with Jinki in the bathroom again, he’s drunk again and Jinki’s mad again and even with the cold water pouring over his head he thinks he might pass out from the heat. The blood is pumping hard and fast through his jugular, right where Jinki’s fingers are. He sinks down to his knees and undoes Jinki’s pants, and Jinki is just as large as all the girls probably hope he would be – dazedly Kibum realises he’s actually never caught Jinki without underwear on, nor any of the other three, actually – “What would all the fans be saying if they knew I was doing this right now,” he says to himself before swallowing all of Jinki whole, and belatedly wonders why he’s even thinking about the fans.

When Jinki comes Kibum swallows it all too; it’s hot and viscous and jarringly sour, and Kibum recalls, for no good reason, that he’s read somewhere that an average load of semen consists of about seven calories, and when Jinki tugs on his hair he wakes up and finds that he’s staring at the ceiling of the bedroom.

The next morning Kibum wakes up earlier than anyone else in the house with the most voracious appetite he’s had in years. He could probably eat a cow. He washes his face and brushes his teeth meticulously, and even after that the hunger doesn’t wear off – increases two or threefold, in fact – so he ransacks the pantry and gathers every single ingredient that he thinks could be put to good use. Dietician-recommended daily intake values be damned, he thinks as he lowers the egg noodles into the pot of boiling water on the stove. He’ll allow himself this exception; this is the closest he’ll be to getting an epiphany any time soon. It’s almost like a religious experience.

“What the,” Jonghyun says as soon as he emerges from his room, bleary-eyed and confused.

Kibum says to Jinki later, waving the newly empty milk carton at him, “We’ll have to switch everything to low-fat next time.” He says – just to spite Jinki – “You might not realise it, but bit by bit you’ve just been getting pudgier.”

Jinki frowns, not quite comprehending the situation. “Okay, whatever you say.”

Kibum recalls how Jinki’s eyes were glassed over in his dream last night. He feels his face burn.

 

 

 

Kibum and Jonghyun happen to be the only miserable ones left in the dorm one day when Taemin and Minho are shipped off to film for some variety show or another, and Jinki is occupied with his latest musical endeavour. Jonghyun tries to shut himself in his room, presumably to entertain himself with yet another one of Minho’s latest acquisitions, but Kibum forces his way in, feeling like there’s an anonymous something on the tip of his tongue and that he needs to tell someone, anyone, even if it was Jonghyun.

Jonghyun ends up trying to compose another song.

“You know that thing I said I was going to do,” Kibum says in the end, all grandiosity and sudden irrelevance, stretching out across Jonghyun’s bed. The skin on his abdomen comes into contact with the sheets, dry and cold. It itches.

“You didn’t mention anything like that.”

Kibum blinks. “I didn’t?” He pauses. “Well, I’m going to do it tonight.” He thinks he’s said it with quite enough conviction; enough to convince himself. His stomach growls, indicating that it’s nearly lunchtime.

“Okay, good for you,” Jonghyun says, returning his attention to his notebook.

 

 

 

Jinki is sitting up in bed reading something. Taemin is nowhere to be found, having presumably locked himself up in the dance studio, or doing homework somewhere no one can find him, and Jinki’s turned down the lights because Kibum is lying in bed and trying to have an early night, how considerate of him. Not that Kibum’s tired or anything. The room is awash with an orange glow from the bedside lamp, and it reminds Kibum of a high-end Japanese restaurant. He is perfectly content with watching Jinki flip from page to yellowed page. Jinki’s fingers are short and stubby and not at all elegant.

He crawls out of his own bed and climbs into Jinki’s, and Jinki just smiles accommodatingly and moves over so Kibum can snuggle with him. He probably thinks Kibum wants to read together with him or something.

“Stop it,” Kibum says, “whatever you’re doing.”

Jinki puts the book down. It’s a copy of _Love in the Time of Cholera_. “Uhm,” he says uncertainly. “Okay.”

“Let’s go eat something,” Kibum continues.

“Now? But it’s almost midnight –”

“Hurry up,” Kibum says, hearing the desperation creep slowly into his own voice. “I’m starving.” He presses the trunk of his body flush against Jinki’s, and watches Jinki’s lips part and go dry.

“Yeah,” Jinki says finally, and Kibum can see the cogs turn in his head, generating promising images of cooked meat and complex carbohydrates, hot and greasy. “Yeah, okay, let’s.”

“Great,” Kibum murmurs, going crazy with want.


End file.
